3 year anniversary of Obamacare

By Tim Newton
Congratulations Obamacare! Your monstrous 2000 page law is now 3 years old. I missed the actual date for celebrating it, but I wanted to do a short follow up on some thoughts that I have on Health Care reform. As you may remember Obamacare was the 2010 law that was enacted to bring about universal health care reform. It included popular provisions like extending coverage for dependent children to 26 and allowing for preexisting conditions to be included. It also included less popular provisions such as the individual mandate (which was upheld by the supreme court under congresses taxation powers) and the expansion of medicare. At this point 3 years later Obamacare still has not been fully implemented, and is due to be fully implemented this year if it goes according to the set schedule of the bill. 

During his campaign in 2008 Barack Obama promised that "I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year."

Many Americans are now asking questions like: what happened to real health care reform? Why are we paying absurd premiums and taking home less of our pay because we're paying too high of premiums? have you heard of a company that has decided not to hire someone because the cost of benefits has become too high? What happened to the law that was signed and would limit the cost of premiums and make healthcare more affordable for all. Has it? Not only has it failed to become more affordable, our premiums on average have increased incredibly and federal spending is set to increase dramatically over the next decade on it and increase our current programs, but why are we surprised at any of this? Nancy Pelosi herself said it best when she said "But we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what’s in it.” She later explained that "why I was saying we have to pass a bill so we can see so that we can show you what it is and what it isn’t...But the fact is, until you have a bill, you can’t really, we can’t really debunk what they’re saying."

Much of the increased spending that you see in the graph above comes from the expansion of medicare, which states were given some freedom to decide on. Many have opted in, and some will opt out. There will be more spending guaranteed though, and for me I see it as less effective rather than more effective, but maybe I'll save that for another posts.

So let's think about this, what were republicans saying exactly when (then) Speaker Pelosi made that statement? Each of these is supported by her statement to the Washington Post that this is what she meant. She said republicans said it was about job killing. Have jobs increased? She said more than 4 Million jobs would be created by it's implementation. We have heard numerous accounts of jobs being lost or hours being cut because of Obamacare. It was about death panels. Well seeing as Obamacare had nothing in it's implementation to increase the amount of doctors, we most likely will have limited coverage as the years continue, especially ad medicaid and medicare continue to grow and cover more individuals. So what else could republicans have possibly been angry about? Apparently it never really got through to her that maybe we didn't want more government involved in our lives making decisions for us. 

On top of all this, we heard this week about congress trying to exempt it's staffers from the exchange program. To clarify some of this (as there has been some confusion) I quote from the Politico story that broke the news 

"The problem stems from whether members and aides set to enter the exchanges would have their health insurance premiums subsidized by their employer — in this case, the federal government. If not, aides and lawmakers in both parties fear that staffers — especially low-paid junior aides — could be hit with thousands of dollars in new health care costs, prompting them to seek jobs elsewhere. Older, more senior staffers could also retire or jump to the private sector rather than face a big financial penalty."

This problem stems from an amendment to the ACA that altered government responsibility to employees, and from what I can tell congress is not trying to exempt itself or its staffers from Obamacare as we all know that would be political suicide for any party involved. For a better explanation of this go here.

Continuing back to the original discussion here, I have never been a big fan of enacting laws to get people to do things. I have long been a supporter of the idea that you teach people and lead by example and people will follow. healthcare is the same as anything else, you lead by example, people will follow.


So what really needs to be done on healthcare? The number one focus should be decreasing the epidemic of obesity in the country. two thirds of the country is considered overweight, and we are just shy of 1/3 of the adult population in the country is obese. Tackling this problem through proper eating habits and exercise should be our main focus, and we need our leaders at the national, state and local levels to focus on this immediately if we are to avoid the incredibly dangerous health risks associated with it.

But what is being done? I am glad and a big proponent of the show "The Biggest Loser." As I believe that it has shed a great deal of light on the situation. If we are to accomplish beating this epidemic we need leaders that will stand up and recognize the problem for what it is, a drain on our healthcare system. Treating the health factors of diabetes and heart disease is crushing our system. The CDC and other organizations are trying to spread the word among Americans that we need to change our lifestyles. If we want premiums to go down, we need a healthier America. Exercise has further benefits beyond maintaining a healthy weight. It can increase our immune system, decreases stress, increases happiness, increases your brain's capabilities among other things.

So get off the computer and go out and take a walk!(after finishing reading this) and spread the news.

But what about Obamacare? As it stands it is the law of the land, and that is unlikely to change. It has become overwhelmingly mingled with our current regulations and while it is seeming extremely costly and we may wish that it would go away, it is unlikely to do so soon. So my recommendation for decreasing your healthcare costs? Get healthy on your own, go join a gym, learn to cook foods that are better for you, and cut down on the things that are bad for your body. Maybe Obamacare won't ever decrease our healthcare costs, but maybe we can.